The sixth day of the month is both good and sad day (more biased to good side though) because it’s my fixed pay day schedule as well as the time to pay my bills. I go once in a month in the Davao City (Philippines) and head usually to SM City Mall to get my pay sent by employer from Montreal, Canada to my local bank, BDO Universal Bank. My employer sends the money through Xoom, which have been consistently an excellent money transfer company for me. It’s the only day in a month where I am temporarily disconnected from the Internet world and go back to the real world while I’m still here in Davao City.

Davao City

Davao City has been hailed as the most livable city of the Philippines and the most highly urbanized, and biggest city in Mindanao Island, boasting good weather (yeah it’s like summer all year round and is typhoon-free), emerging business industries, low cost of living and doing business, tight security (with a steel-fisted city mayor), good air quality, water system, among other factors.  Davao is also dubbed as "Silicon Gulf" due to its rapid rise in the fields of computing in the Philippines. But enough with that, you can read more about my city in Wikipedia.

My Trip

I live in Barangay Lasang (a barangay is Philippine’s smallest political unit or form of government, sort of "village") and it is 33 kilometers away from Davao City proper. To make story short here’s how I spend my day every 6th day of the month (well, usually):

• 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM — Prepare to leave: bath, wear decent clothes and jeans, gel hair, lunch and make them look like spikes lol
• 12:30 PM – 1:15 PM — Go to national highway (Davao-Agusan National Highway) 600 meters from home and wait under the sun for a Davao Metro Shuttle bus. If the timing is good, I can ride with an air-conditioned bus though it costs a bit more.

• 1:15 PM – 1:50 PM — Sleep inside the bus with mouth closed and wake up sporadically town after town. When awake, I usually think how great it is to be away from computer sometimes (although another side of me screams from inside that "I miss Internet!" — LOL).

• 1:50 PM — Stop over at Barangay Ilang, Panacan for stupid army bus inspection. Stupid because sometimes I’m in deep sleep then the army wakes me up and  mandates all males to go down the bus. They inspect the baggages inside for possible security hazards. Well, at least I can say it’s better to be safe than sorry.

 

 

• 1:50 PM to 2:20 PM — Sleep Part 2: this time sometimes with mouth wide open. lol Just kidding. Well yeah sometimes. If I’m not asleep, I’ll be watching the view as I enter the city proper of Davao. When we arrive at the Ecoland Overland Transport Terminal, I switch to a public utility jeep and head to SM City Mall Davao.

 

• 2:25 PM — Arrival at SM City Mall Davao. This is the most frequent mall I go to in Davao because it is near the overland transport terminal where I ride for bus home. I get my pay at BDO Universal Bank inside this mall and pay my SmartBro Internet bills as well there.

Finally: I GOT AIR CONDITIONER!

This month’s pay I firmly decided to use it to get an aircon for my room because I am not happy anymore working with codes sweating. I reckon getting an aircon is a must if you want to live here in Davao comfortably (although I survived 21 years of my life without an aircon). I got this from an appliance center in the city under financing terms of 3 months. For sure this hurts and will still hurt my pocket on the incoming electric bills, but this saves my mood in a day as I can finally beat the 35C mid-day temperature and 30C night time temperature that has been plaguing me. Being in comfort is priceless.

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